


if the crown fits (when the sword lifts)

by astralscrivener



Series: vld fic requests [14]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Blood and Injury, Established Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Established Keith/Lance (Voltron), Healer Lance (Voltron), King Adam (Voltron), King Shiro (Voltron), Knight Keith (Voltron), Knight Lance (Voltron), M/M, Magic-Users
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:27:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24292057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astralscrivener/pseuds/astralscrivener
Summary: Keith looked nothing like the brother who’d left the castle late last night, with tired eyes and a thin smile. That little brother with a set to his spine and a pull of his shoulders radiating determination as he hefted the Captain’s sword and directed his knights forward, while he walked just a step behind Adam. He hadn’t wanted the position, but had taken it anyway because Shiro wanted it for him. Because Shiro thought he was capable.Because Shiro had severely miscalculated the threat the Galra and the Druids presented to them.The Galra Empire is out for blood, and sets its sights on its newest adversary: the Kingdom of Garrina, where Adam and Shiro have just been crowned kings, and Keith has ascended to Captain of the Guard.sequel toas long as i'm breathing (i'm not leaving).
Relationships: Adam & Keith (Voltron), Adam & Lance (Voltron), Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Keith/Lance (Voltron), Lance & Shiro (Voltron), Matt Holt & Shiro
Series: vld fic requests [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/891546
Comments: 13
Kudos: 99





	if the crown fits (when the sword lifts)

**Author's Note:**

> _title from **undone** by tommee profitt_
> 
> hey gang, it's been a HOT MINUTE since i posted a fic!! if you're new here, welcome, and if you're an old reader, welcome back!! i am not dead, despite how hard the semester tried to kill me <3
> 
> as i mentioned before, this is a sequel to [as long as i'm breathing (i'm not leaving)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22072012), so if you haven't read it yet, or want a refresher, i recommend doing it!! if you don't wanna (re)read it, the gist is that shiro gave up his position as captain of the guard so he could marry adam, he took keith out in the woods for a lovely nature walk to tell him "hey i'm making u captain of the guard now," they got attacked by druids, they got brought back to the palace where lance healed them, and they all lived happily ever after
> 
> until this fic
> 
> anyway adam and shiro are officially married now and keith is the captain so. ya
> 
> requested by the lovely [anna](https://twitter.com/blueskiesclub) for her dear friend [darcy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thespacenico/works) aka thespacenico!! thank u for commissioning me, this was a lot of fun to write and i'm sorry it took 5 months lmao 
> 
> and of course, beta'd by my fellow suffering english major [nicole](https://archiveofourown.org/users/queeneevee/works)!! i cannot thank them enough for their hard work, especially beta'ing THIS ONE bc holy shit this one was a monster. anyway please check out their work!!!! especially if you're into haikyuu!! they just edited two of their fics, [bryde formen](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6309082) and [growing pains](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10539483), so go check them out!!!
> 
> and now i'll stop rambling and get to the **trigger warnings: graphic depictions of violence, blood, mild gore(?), fantasy body horror(ish), mentions of nausea, characters being too self-sacrificial for their own good, high-stress situations...i think i've covered my bases**
> 
> have fun!!

Well, Adam wasn’t dead.

Several assassination attempts on his knights. Multiple attempts on Takashi, Keith, and a handful of others who’d gotten caught up in the fray— _several_ frays, because that first attempt wasn’t the last—had ended in failure. Attempts made by assassins _from a faction of druids in Daibazaal_ who had professed that _Adam was their true target all along._ Five missions, all with miserable conclusions. And then, when they had finally gotten Adam into their home base, the palace at the heart of Daibazaal:

They didn’t kill him.

Whoever his captors were, they saw it fit that he remained alive, albeit injured, to serve as bait. That was inevitable—the crown meant politics, and politics meant that sooner or later, someone would use him as a pawn. He was more surprised that it took until he was twenty-eight years old for it to happen. Twenty-eight years old, and the first people to succeed in making him their pawn were the same ones who had tried time and time again to _murder him_ , and then finally got their chance and didn’t take it.

His luck would run out sooner or later.

He knew that. People liked to poke at Adam’s age now more than ever. It had been tolerable, being twenty-eight and a prince. Sure, people talked about how he had duties he was shirking (he didn’t), or that he wasn’t doing enough (he was doing more than they knew), but he could bear it.

Then he married Takashi and ascended the throne as his parents stepped down, and the talking became jeering.

_Twenty-eight is too old for a prince,_ he mused, _but too young for a king. What would they like for me to be, then?_

_Dead,_ he concluded a moment later, tentative smile fading as he leaned against the wall. It always circled back to that: the knowledge that no matter what, no matter what he said or did or how well he did it, there would always be someone out there waiting for the day when he was laid to rest six feet underground.

It made life interesting, walking that line, caught between not giving a damn and giving so many damns that he ran out of damns to give. Had his life been the only one hanging in the balance at the moment, he probably would have embraced the former.

His eyes drifted across the cell.

Here was the thing about marrying Takashi: marriage forced him to step down from his position as Captain of the Guard. That was number one. Number two was that instead of accompanying Adam as his husband into territory they _knew_ was hostile, Takashi had to remain back at the palace in the heart of Garrina, working with Adam’s parents on strategy and learning the ways of the crown after a life of knighthood to keep things running at home. In the place he normally would’ve occupied, Takashi had sent Keith and a smaller entourage of knights.

As far as Adam knew, all of the other knights were being held captive but were ultimately kept alive. Whether that was a good or a bad thing, Adam didn’t know yet.

Meanwhile, Keith, with his new title as Takashi’s successor, had been allowed to stay with Adam.

That was a bad thing.

_Would it have been better or worse to have Takashi here with me instead?_

Adam couldn’t answer the question, because one life did not weigh more than another, especially one just as dear to him as Takashi’s.

“Lance is gonna kill me if I make it out of this,” Keith grunted, almost as though he could read Adam’s thoughts.

Both of them were chained to the wall by their wrists—Keith on the left side of the cell and Adam on the right. Their chains were just long enough that they stopped short of the center of the cell, just out of reach of the other, which meant Adam was helpless to watch the effects of a poison take hold over the course of the last hour, even as Keith tried to use his Blood-bending magic to fight it off.

Where Adam leaned back against the wall, his wrists resting on knees only slightly drawn up, the perfect picture of poise and sophistication and calculated calm, Keith gave into his pain.

His knees were drawn all the way up to his chest, arms wrapped as tightly around them as he could manage and head down. He was trembling—had been, for a good fifteen minutes now. And even with his head bent, Adam could still make out the faint lines of veins darkening with the same inky black that had tried to take over Takashi’s. They spiderwebbed up his arms, visible with his plate armor now confiscated and sleeves rolled up.

_They’re doing this to hurt you,_ was Adam’s first instinct, when he realized what had happened and why he and Keith had been allowed into the same cell. Then he’d thought about it from a political standpoint, and that initial thought became a starting point for his spiral.

_Is this to hurt Takashi, too? Or even Keith, beyond the poison?_

_Is this merely because they assume that, as a member of the royal family, I’m close with the person most chiefly responsible for protecting us?_

_What do they know of the connections between myself, Takashi, and Keith?_ Do _they know anything?_

_Is there a mole in the palace?_

_Did the mole come with us, or is an investigation warranted, once this is all over?_

“ _When_ we make it out,” Adam finally corrected, heartbeat speeding up. “We’ll get out of this. And we know how to deal with this poison.”

_You shouldn’t be speaking so freely and so informally._

When it was Adam and Takashi on diplomatic missions, they had always been mindful of who was around, whether or not they were being watched or eavesdropped upon. They acted formal to the point of stiffness, only until they were certain they had a moment alone with each other. But things had always been less formal with Keith, especially since Adam knew him first as the spitfire orphan Takashi had taken under his wing. He would always be a little brother in Adam’s eyes.

“This one’s different,” Keith managed through gritted teeth, raising his head. “If this was the poison they’d shot Shiro with, I’d be dead already.”

He lifted his arms and inspected them, frown deepening, dark lines under his eyes more pronounced. They’d been ghosts of purple shadows this morning, but now they matched the same sickly black meandering under his skin. One cheek now had the appearance of fractured glass as the poison made its way up toward his eyes and down to his mouth.

Adam swallowed back bile rising in his throat.

“Different how?” he asked, voice lacking all the prestige and power it normally carried.

Keith shook his head. “Hasn’t killed me yet. Feels weird.”

The answer was not nearly as helpful or informative as Adam had been hoping for, but he wasn’t going to pester Keith about it. Not when he was the one who had taken the poison in Adam’s stead. Not when sweat beaded his forehead and ran down the sides of his face. Not when Keith shivered violently, skin growing paler by the hour, gaze becoming more and more distant as his thoughts wandered and muddled.

“It’ll be alright, Keith,” Adam said, lowering his voice. “I’m…I’m sure the rest of the Knights will break us out of here, or perhaps our release is being deliberated upon right now…”

Even drifting in and out of consciousness, reality and fantasy, Keith was lucid enough to cast a disbelieving look in Adam’s direction.

“Between you and Shiro, you’re the realist, and right now? You need to act like it. I can’t take—” he waved a hand at him, “—this. Do you see a way out of here? I mean, look—”

And then he recoiled.

His hands flew to his head, and he curled further in on himself as breaths hissed out between his teeth. Adam rocketed forward on instinct, chains jerking him to a halt as Keith let out something close to a whimper.

With all the noise, Adam didn’t hear the footsteps approaching the cell until a broad shadow fell over the light filtering through the rusted metal bars.

His head snapped up. He felt the absence of his crown when it didn’t fly back and clatter to the floor with the movement, and set his jaw as though it would keep that thought from manifesting on his face in the presence of one of his captors. He spared one last glance at Keith, who was seemingly unaware of the appearance of a third party.

“Your Majesty,” their captor greeted, smile revealing teeth perfectly filed to razor-sharp points. Their eyes— _eye_ —narrowed, a ghastly yellow glittering with unmitigated malice. The other eye was no eye at all, but a brilliant crimson gemstone, glowing—

_No._

His hair, longer than it had been in their last encounter, was what had given Adam pause, but this man was not new to him. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

Adam’s throat burned a second time as he stared upon Commander Sendak of the Galra Empire, perhaps not the best of strategists but a brutal fighter, ruthless on the battlefield with an unparalleled bloodlust.

The man responsible for the loss of Takashi’s arm. A dead man, last Adam had seen him, the moment Takashi drove his sword through his heart before he could deliver a killing blow to Adam.

“Commander,” he managed, composure wavering.

Sendak had already redirected his attention. He stepped closer to Keith’s side of the cell, smile widening.

Adam’s stomach roiled.

“So I see our experiment is working as it should,” he drawled.

His voice finally grabbed Keith’s attention. He looked up, eyes wide in a terror he had never been so forthcoming with. His hands dropped automatically from his head to his waist, reaching for a dagger he didn’t have, and he sucked in a breath when he realized. At that, his hands curled into fists, and he glared beyond the hair falling into his face.

He looked every bit the angry orphan he’d been that first day, standing before Adam with Takashi’s reassuring hand on his shoulder.

This was not a Keith Adam wanted to see again.

“What experiment?” he demanded hoarsely.

Sendak barked out a single laugh. “As if I’d tell you, _Captain_.”

_You don’t have to,_ Adam thought, closing his eyes. _I can do all the work myself._

His Reader powers did not work the way many people thought they did. He did not hear the thoughts of every single person around him, fascinating as that would be (he remembered a disappointed Lance, young and new to the knights, asking why Adam hadn’t flinched when he started screaming in his head). If that were the case, he’d have a splitting headache not even halfway into each day.

No, Adam read minds at his own will and leisure, and only those unshielded.

Some people chose to leave their walls down unless a situation called for shielding, like Lance and Takashi. Others left them up, airtight and made of steel, only coming down at gentle prodding from those they most trusted, like Keith. Then there were those who weren’t aware they probably should have been shielding in the first place, like Sendak.

The threads of his Super-strength power glowed orange in Adam’s line of sight, black threads shimmering with purple outlines twined around them—his powers were being amplified, probably by some Druid or another, who had to be lurking close by.

_Forget that. Focus._

Keith’s question brought the answers Adam sought to the surface of Sendak’s mind in fragments. They were not strings of words so much as they were visions, snippets of memories from not too long ago by the looks of it.

_A circle of Druids in some kind of cave, hands joined, chanting incantations in a language Adam didn’t understand. Jets of light, the same purple-drenched black as the threads of the powers amplifying Sendak’s, beamed out from their chests and coalesced into a writhing ball of energy at the center of the circle, just above a hole in the ground filled with a vibrant pink liquid._

_A shadowy corridor of dark gray stone, Sendak flanked by a knight in plate armor with Adam’s family crest, their face featureless save for blazing pink eyes. Whispering. Adam heard nothing of what they were saying, but Sendak’s cruel satisfaction rolled over Adam, repugnant. Whatever he had wanted to know, he’d gotten it._

_Same corridor. The knight lay on the ground with a sword through their neck, blood pooling around them and their wide, unseeing eyes._

_A study of some sort. Books were strewn about the room, some in neat stacks, some flung about haphazardly, others lying open on pages with script Adam couldn’t read. Beakers and bottles of different herbs, minerals, other items of the natural variety, and luminous liquids lined various tables and shelves. Some sat in neat rows, awaiting their next use. Others filtered through tubes and mesh nets, simmered in pots and cauldrons and flat dishes. At the room’s center, alongside Sendak, stood—stood—_

Adam ripped himself out of Sendak’s mind.

He tried not to so much as flinch when he did it, but the horror in his expression must have betrayed him anyway. Sendak’s head whipped in his direction. For a moment, there was nothing but pure confusion. Then his mouth twisted into a sneer as he appraised Adam.

“The Reader Prince.”

It sounded almost scholarly. Adam was young when the epithet had first been bestowed upon him, young and bookish, and he had embraced it wholeheartedly. That was, until, he put the pieces together, and realized he was giving away vital information.

The powers of royals…they weren’t exactly secrets. Some powers were commonly known, but others were strictly concealed. The way Adam saw it, the more valuable or uncommon a power was, like Mind-reading, the more important to keep quiet that information became. Powers like Light-bending, or Fire-bending, on the other hand, were so common that some royals revolved their entire persona around their abilities.

Garrina had supposedly quashed anyone who remembered his nickname and powers that wasn’t a close ally, but they had not accounted for their own citizens being turned against them.

Adam didn’t respond to Sendak. He continued his owl-eyed staring, only tearing his gaze away when Keith erupted in a coughing fit, keeling over and dry-heaving.

“ _Kei—Captain!_ ”

Adam didn’t waste the time to mentally chide himself for his near-slip-up. He lunged forward, straining against the cuffs around his wrists and the chains binding him to the wall.

“I severely doubt your yelling will do anything for him.” Despite the deadpan he was trying for, Adam still detected the amusement in Sendak’s voice as he took another step forward. Something in his hands rattled, and before Adam knew it, the door to their cell swung open. Sendak entered and approached Keith.

Commands, one after another, built up in Adam’s mind but never made it out of his mouth. He couldn’t tell Sendak what to do, and he was a prince— _king, you are a king now_ —and Keith was his subordinate. No matter how close they were, no matter if Adam considered him a little brother, people could not know that. They had already found out about Takashi, and if they found out just how closely he held Keith to his heart as well…

He couldn’t just order Sendak to stay away from Keith.

So instead he watched, revulsion and rage coloring the edges of his sight red as Sendak unlocked Keith’s handcuffs and he fell forward, gasping and wheezing. When he lifted his head long enough for Adam to look at him, the breath caught in Adam’s throat and his heart stuttered.

The darkness had spread, far more quickly than he’d anticipated.

Black veins webbed across both cheeks now, down to his lips, up and over one eye completely and across half of the other. The same inky blood spilled over one corner of his mouth, and when he opened it to gasp again, Adam saw that the blood coated his tongue and teeth.

“ _Help me_ ,” he choked out in the split second before Sendak was upon him, wrenching his arms behind him and eliciting a cry of pain.

His blood spattered onto the floor, and Sendak paid it no mind as he yanked Keith to his feet and shoved him forward. Keith stumbled, tripping over himself and his weak legs. More blood ran down his chin and dribbled onto his shirt, and Keith gagged on it, shuddering. His eyes found Adam’s once more, a desperate plea in his gaze before they rolled back, and he went limp.

“No! _No!_ ”

Adam pulled forward, handcuffs biting into his wrists. All the while, Sendak peered down at Keith, not only unperturbed by everything that had just happened in the last minute, but almost pleased with himself and the turn of events.

“Well,” he said, looking directly at Adam, grinning, “it appears he’s moving through the stages more quickly than we had expected. I wonder how _you’ll_ fare—I suppose we’ll see eventually.”

Without offering an explanation, he laughed, turned, and began hauling Keith’s unconscious body out of the cell, still trying to push him into walking when he knew very well that Keith couldn’t.

Adam yelled after him with a string of curses entirely unbecoming of a king, long after the cell door banged shut and footsteps disappeared down the hall, leaving him completely alone.

He didn’t know where his other knights had been dragged off to. He didn’t know where Sendak was going with Keith or what he wanted with him beyond some experiment with the Druids, or why Keith hadn’t died—unless he’d just—?

_No._

Adam at last sank back against the wall, chains rattling as they pooled in silver spirals on the floor. He leaned his head back, chest rising and falling harshly with his ragged breathing, and closed his eyes. Started counting. Tried to remind himself that someone would come for them soon enough, and he had to be strong. Yes, he could do nothing but sit and wait for rescue, weaponless and restrained and useless for the time being, but it was better than the alternative.

They wanted something with Keith, and they hadn’t yet slaughtered Adam. They were needed alive, for whatever end.

* * *

They hadn’t killed him.

Panic clawing up his insides, blood draining from his face, vision tunneling and all of his limbs going numb, and yet, here he was, still alive. Maybe he was handcuffed, and hurt, and being dragged between two soldiers with Commander Sendak at their helm, but still breathing. No poison invading his system—not like last time.

Shiro’s temple throbbed in the wake of the blow that had brought brief unconsciousness crashing down over him. He remembered the hit in fragments: his knights, fighting against the Galra soldiers who had swarmed them before they could reach the walls surrounding the palace. Screams, bloodshed, metal clanging and arrows whispering through the air before striking home. Sendak’s arrival, sunny afternoon darkening around Shiro as he caught sight of him and his breathing ceased. Red—the jewel, the color rimming his line of sight, the blood on his armor and on his knights’ armor and coating his blade and the ground—

Then black. Nothing.

If anyone had seen him go down and be hauled off the battlefield, if anyone had screamed for him or tried to go after him, if any of them had gone down—he remembered nothing. Either his knights had gotten away, or they’d been captured and brought elsewhere. Or flat-out killed.

_Like I should’ve been._

He couldn’t see the end of the empty hallway. Couldn’t see forward, either.

Himself. Two soldiers. Sendak.

They hadn’t seemed to notice his waking up. The two soldiers lugging him along, with his boots scraping against stone and echoing against the walls and ceiling, chatted about nonsense—sporting events, dinner that night, the most mundane aspects of their lives; the very same aspects that kept slipping through Shiro’s fingers no matter how hard he tried to hold on.

Sendak himself didn’t speak. Not until his footsteps ceased, and the soldiers drew to a halt, and Shiro held his breath.

Then electricity rocketed through his bones, and he shrieked.

It lasted maybe a handful of seconds: more than enough to wake him up, had he still been unconscious, and just enough to hurt him, too.

He wheezed as the soldiers dropped him. His back hit the floor, and he up at faces sneering from behind masks, stared up at the grin Sendak sent down as he stepped forward. The three of them blotted out the light from the burning braziers on the walls and darkness crowded the edges of Shiro’s vision, the same way it had when he’d fallen unconscious.

“From captain, to consort, to _captive_ ,” Sendak remarked in his dead man’s drawl. “What achievements you’ve managed, Shirogane.”

“That’s not my name,” Shiro wheezed, still heaving for air.

Sendak’s grin merely widened. “My mistake, _Your Majesty_. I’m sure that, had he the ability or the _backbone_ , your husband would have ordered me punished for such a slight.”

Bait, plain and simple, and Shiro seized it anyway.

“ _Where’s Adam?_ ”

“How _colloquial_.” Sendak laughed when Shiro blanched, head thrown back, and then shifted on his feet, sweeping one hand out in gesture to the door that the group stood in front of. “Why, he’s just through here, along with your new captain. I thought I’d be generous and bring you right to them—it’s the least I could do for you, after all.”

So clearly a trap, and Shiro had no choice but to be pulled right into it.

“Of course,” Shiro said, and added as an afterthought, “how kind of you.”

Sendak nodded to the two soldiers, and they hauled Shiro back to his feet and shoved him ahead of them, just behind Sendak. Shiro saw nothing past his hulking frame as he passed through the doorway, but the soldiers on either side of him tightened their already-ironlike grips on his arms, as though they knew he’d try to break free at the first opportunity.

To be fair, he would have, had he not heard screaming around him, rising to a roaring crescendo.

Shiro’s heart climbed into his throat as Sendak spun around and walked backwards, arms out at his sides as he motioned to the space around him.

He hadn’t led Shiro down to the dungeons, like he had expected, nor had he brought him to some laboratory for study or experimentation or torture. Instead, Shiro found himself at the entrance to an ovular arena, packed with shrieking citizens and soldiers. At either end of the arena stood two posts, and chained to them were two figures. They’d been slumped over before, but their heads snapped up at the sound of the door.

Despite their preparedness, one soldier’s grip still slipped as Shiro lunged forward.

“ _What did you do to them?_ ”

Sendak, Adam, Keith—Shiro’s feet stuttered, unsure of the direction they wanted to take, and he ultimately landed on his knees, as the soldiers regained their holds on him.

“You have a choice, Shirogane,” Sendak said, approaching, drawing a sword from his belt. He stopped just short of Shiro and tossed the sword to the ground—an amber-encrusted hilt, a gleaming pommel. “Save your captain, or save your king. I’ll have you know, though—” and he cast a glance over his shoulder at Keith, “—one of them may not even be worth saving, at this point.”

One of the soldiers tugged on his arm, brought his wrists up, and undid his handcuffs, while Shiro stared at Sendak, a muscle feathering in his jaw.

“Now, don’t believe you’re being given an easy task,” Sendak went on, drawing a second sword of his own, nearly twice the size of Shiro’s sword. “We struggled over how to give you a real _challenge,_ seeing as you’ve bested us so many times before, but she came up with a brilliant idea: fighters who know your every move!”

_We. She._

Shiro’s eyes flicked to a dais in the center of the stands.

While King Zarkon’s viewing throne remained empty, absent of its infirmed ruler, the dais was not altogether abandoned. A woman stood with bony hands braced on the railing, long hair spilling from underneath the shadows of her hood and down the front of her robe—the same dark robe that denoted a Druid.

Shiro couldn’t see them, but he knew her eyes were not on him. Not when her head turned as another door squeaked and rattled, and across the arena, a portcullis drew up.

Behind it stood at least half a dozen knights, all wearing armor marked with the crest of the Amber Star, pink lights blazing from behind their helmets.

_Fighters who know your every move._

Metal. Gears grinding. Shiro’s head whipped toward a second portcullis, and another six knights waiting.

He cut his eyes to Adam, whose skin had gone ashen, dark veins meandering over his skin like tributaries of a river. He peered at Shiro from behind his glasses, one lens a spiderweb of cracks, and shook his head.

Shiro couldn’t read minds, but he got the message all the same: _you shouldn’t have come for us. Save yourself while you still can._

Then Adam’s eyes drifted to Keith, and Shiro followed his line of sight.

Bile rose up, sudden and sharp and burning.

Keith looked nothing like the brother who’d left the castle late last night, with tired eyes and a thin smile. That little brother with a set to his spine and a pull of his shoulders radiating determination as he hefted the Captain’s sword and directed his knights forward, while he walked just a step behind Adam. He hadn’t wanted the position, but had taken it anyway because Shiro wanted it for him. Because Shiro thought he was capable.

Because Shiro had severely miscalculated the threat the Galra and the Druids presented to them.

Keith’s skin was bone-white, shot through and streaked with black, almost like a marble statue of the anguished heroes of myth. His hair hung in his face and nearly obscured his eyes, but Shiro saw them anyway, two inky pools pricked with a single dot of pink light. Black blood ran down his chin from a corner of his mouth, set in a crooked half-grin that rattled Shiro to his core.

He recognized the darkness in Keith’s veins, in his knights’, but when that had been Shiro, he had nearly died.

What stood before him now was leagues worse.

_“Puppets.”_ Shiro reached out for Adam with his magic. He knew he’d get no response unless Adam risked speaking out loud, but he reached out all the same, reached for that anchor. _“They’re being turned into puppets.”_

_You’re being turned into one, too._

The King of Garrina, subject to the whims of King Zarkon’s witch. His Captain of the Guard, his knights, all suffering the same fate.

The king’s husband, too, if Shiro didn’t act quickly.

For a moment, Shiro closed his eyes, just long enough to reach out for the knights, for Keith, and see the threads of their powers. Keith’s dark red threads were tangled up in a knot of bright pink. The rest of his knights’ were wrapped in warping, twisting strands of a gray-purple color, different from the gray-green Lance had described in the infirmary after the initial ambush. And then there were Adam’s.

Beige, wrapped in gray-green.

Adam watched Shiro’s face fall. Sendak watched Shiro’s face fall. He knew it from the way the both of them looked at him—Adam, with a wistful smile and another shake of his head, and Sendak, still wearing his sinister grin as he twirled his sword around and pointed it at Shiro, tip resting just inches from his face.

“Rise, Shirogane, and fight. Unless you’d like to surrender now? King and consort present, I’m sure some treaty could be arranged…assuming the king has enough time left.”

Shiro tried to ignore the statement and swallowed. Eyed the blade.

Sendak withdrew it. Slowly.

Warily, Shiro reached out for the sword on the ground. Wrapped his hand around the familiar hilt. Rose to his feet, muscles tight.

Between himself and Adam, Shiro was the optimist, but even he knew how this would end. He was outnumbered, outmatched. Adam had just a short window of time left, and the best swordsman among Garrina’s knights would undoubtedly be set free and unleashed upon Shiro with the rest of them. Keith knew Shiro’s moves inside and out, and Shiro knew his, and Shiro didn’t know what effect the poison had on Keith’s mind—how deeply it skewed his perceptions of the world and its people, how deeply it skewed his decisions.

Keith knew how deep the love between Shiro and Adam ran, and knew what they’d do for each other.

Keith knew how much Shiro cared about _him_ , his brother in bond, and how far he’d go to protect him.

There was no situation Shiro saw in which this ended well, and in the middle of contemplating his own mortality, and Adam’s, and Keith’s, fate created a new way out.

In the form of an arrow through Sendak’s skull.

The tip protruded from the middle of his forehead, appearing with a burst of blood as Sendak stumbled, not dead and still plenty alert, too alert for it to be anywhere near natural.

Shiro could’ve wasted his time contemplating it and searching for the source of the arrow, but he hadn’t been the Captain of the Guard—hadn’t been nicknamed _the Champion_ —for nothing.

He spun back, blade slashing out and meeting the soldier on his left in the tiny space between their helmet and the armor on their neck with a spray of crimson. They hit their knees while their companion lunged for Shiro with a stab that missed by only a handful of inches. Their momentum carried them right into Shiro’s waiting elbow as he changed course and spun the other way, his blade following suit.

Seeing two of his soldiers fall in the span of seconds must have kicked Sendak back into action.

Blood running down his face, he charged Shiro, poised to stab. Shiro side-stepped, nimble on his feet where Sendak was clumsy—clumsier than he’d ever been on the battlefield.

_The arrow._

Shiro swept his eyes around the arena again as soldiers poured in from their chambers. All of them brandished swords, not a single archer in sight, although there was movement among the crowds, commotion among the clamor. Even Haggar’s concentration broke as she whipped her head around—

—just in time to watch someone, bare of plate armor, leap down from the stands and land in a cloud of dust, one hand braced against the earth to keep his balance as he crouched. Another body followed, this one also stripped of plate armor but still carrying a sword, and completely unaffected by Haggar’s power.

Adam turned his head.

Across the way, Keith tugged at his restraints with a growl.

The two who’d leapt from the stands broke away from each other and beelined in two separate directions. One, for Adam. The other, for Keith.

Matt and Lance.

For half a second, Lance and Shiro met eyes. Shiro had no time to call orders before Lance stopped in place, took aim, and fired off two more arrows. The bolts sailed over Shiro’s head, and behind him, Sendak roared with pain as they struck home.

Then the other knights came crashing in.

One group came upon Lance in a frenzied swarm. His eyes widened in panic just before he disappeared from Shiro’s line of sight, plunged into chaos. On the other side of the arena, Matt had disappeared—Shiro marked his location only by sands shifting seemingly by themselves, and then by the gasp as Adam raised his head, flinching away from a phantom touch.

Shiro changed courses.

_“Get him out of here as soon as possible,”_ he directed to Matt, feet sliding underneath him. _“If you can, come back for the others. Don’t worry about me—and that’s an order.”_

He couldn’t tell if Matt was listening, and didn’t have the time.

Another animalistic noise ripped from Sendak’s throat as he bore down on Shiro from behind _—foolish, foolish to turn your back on the enemy_. Shiro turned in time to bring his blade up to block, but the hit still forced his own sword back, dangerously close to cutting his face. Again.

_You should be dead._

Shiro’s eyes found their way to Sendak’s chest, to his heavy plate armor with the Galra insignia. No dents, no scratches. It gleamed in its newness—something special, just for the occasion.

Sendak followed his line of sight and seized the moment.

He twirled his blade. It screeched as it scraped against Shiro’s, and then it was gone.

Shiro stumbled.

Sendak stabbed.

Any closer, and Sendak would have skewered him through the neck.

Instead, his blade sliced through his shoulder.

Shiro cried out.

He maintained his grip on his own sword—barely—and his shoulder lit with fiery pain as he brought it back up to block another of the blows that Sendak rained down upon him, hacking away as though he were no more than firewood. And maybe he would’ve been, had another arrow not flown out from behind him and struck Sendak square in his one working eye.

He shrieked.

Shiro lunged.

One step. Two.

He leapt, kicking Sendak square in the chest and sending him sprawling.

Sendak swiped at him, sightless, while Shiro knocked the blade from his hand. It skittered across the sand as he one foot planted on Sendak’s heaving chest.

Shiro’s forelock fell in his face as he brought his sword up with both hands, and for a moment, merely held it over Sendak, dragging in ragged breaths. Then—

“This should have worked the _first time._ ”

—in one swift motion, Shiro brought his sword down, blade piercing Sendak’s pristine armor, piercing flesh, sliding between bone. Sendak bucked once, wheezing—

“Maybe this time you’ll _learn your fucking lesson._ ”

Shiro yanked his sword out and let Sendak’s body fall limply back to the ground, spasming as the last of his life gave out on him. Bile rose up in the back of Shiro’s throat, sharp and sudden, and he turned away—

—only to be met with a flying tackle from his left.

Shiro hit the ground back-first as Adam yelled something unintelligible behind him. Shiro hadn’t the time nor the patience to decipher it as he brought his sword across his body to block Keith, snarling as he pressed down with his own sword.

Gone was any semblance of Shiro’s little brother. His pink pupils blazed with Haggar’s magic, surrounded by the dark pools of his black sclerae. The dark veins in his face seemed to throb and pulse in time with his heavy breathing as he drew his blade back, and then brought it down again, metal clanging against metal. Up, down again—erratic, chaotic, unrelenting.

Desperate.

It was the same fighting style Shiro first spent months training Keith to unlearn when he’d first been knighted. Though it could be effective in the heat of a moment, it was reckless, and sloppy, and—

_Keith is a smart kid._

—it left openings.

When Keith drew back and prepared to bring down his sword again, both hands wrapped around the hilt and blade poised to plunge into Shiro’s throat, Shiro surged up and rolled, throwing Keith off of him. While he hit the ground, Shiro scrambled to his feet.

“I know you’re in there,” he called, trying his best to keep his voice steady as he took light steps backwards, “and you know full well I’m gonna kick your ass!”

Shiro could play the long game; if Keith relied on his old fighting tactics, he’d burn himself out sooner rather than later. It was what Shiro was hoping for as he fell back into a defensive stance, bracing himself as Keith charged again, swinging his sword with a flourish before he brought the blade down in a wide arc, clanging against Shiro’s.

No returning remarks.

He wheezed as he pressed down against Shiro’s blade and then drew back, Shiro stumbling forward with the pressure suddenly gone. Keith moved back in with a stab. Shiro dodged from the brunt of it, taking instead a slash across his chest, tearing through his shirt, through his skin.

Off-balance, he staggered back, and Keith moved in again, only to be met halfway there with an arrow through the chest.

He stopped in his tracks, one hand flying to the shaft.

Then he fell to his knees.

Shiro had hardly gotten his bearings before Lance came flying onto the scene, battered and worse for wear. Without the plate armor to protect him, his padded leather armor had been torn up and shredded in some places, pierced through in others. A long cut ran across his forehead, blood spilling down his face and into his eyes. The knuckles of his left hand were split and bleeding, and his quiver sat near-empty, less than a half dozen arrows remaining.

One of them sat lodged in Keith’s chest.

Lance swooped in and caught Keith before he could hit the ground. He whipped his head back to glare daggers at Shiro.

“ _Get to your king._ ”

Somehow, for better or for worse, Lance had bought Shiro time. Had taken down Keith in one shot.

His eyes were his own, bright blue and wet and piercing, and so Shiro had no choice but to trust that Lance knew what he was doing. He nodded back and then took off running. His eyes swept across the rest of the arena and found knights clashing with their own, some of them with clear eyes, arrows with snapped shafts stuck in their arms, legs, some in their backs, a handful in chests…

_No time, no time—_

Lance had figured something out, and Shiro could learn what it was back in the palace walls.

He sprinted for the post where Adam slumped over into the arms of the now-visible Matt. He was free of his chains, skin pale and ashen, and from the looks of it, barely breathing. Matt raised his head when Shiro approached, but Adam remained still, eyes shut, even when Shiro came crashing down in the sand next to them.

“We need to get him to a healer _now_ ,” Matt breathed out. “This is the shit they pulled when they got to you and Keith that time in the woods. If he doesn’t get attention in the next _half an hour_ —”

“Our only healer just shot Keith,” Shiro snapped, dropping his sword at his side and taking Adam carefully into his arms. “Do we have _any_ soldiers in the area who aren’t currently in this arena? Any Teleporters?”

Even as he spoke, he glanced down at Adam’s wan face, the dark threads of his veins, his dusty hair.

“A lot were hurt in the fight when you went down,” Matt explained, “and at least a dozen killed. Others were brought here. Half of them hadn’t realized you’d been taken and were looking for a leader who was suddenly absent, and the Galra seized their opportunity. If any remain outside or are trying to get in here now, they’re probably clashing with Galra forces. It’s just us.”

Matt paused to study Shiro and Adam, and then swallowed.

“You two need to get back to the palace. You two and Lance, at least. The rest of us—”

“No—”

“ _You’re the fucking king now, Shiro_ ,” Matt cut him off. “Drop the honor thing. Drop the knight attitude. You have to save yourself and save him. You would have died to let your king live before, right? My turn.”

Matt picked up the Captain of the Guard’s sword before Shiro could protest.

“Someone in here’s a Teleporter,” he said, rising to his feet. “Wait here.”

Shiro had barely opened his mouth before Matt faded from sight, turning invisible. He could only watch his footsteps in the sand as he plunged back into the chaos, right into the melee of the knights, possessed fighting against the freed.

Once he could no longer keep track of him, his gaze fell back down to Adam.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, brushing Adam’s bangs back, as if his touch alone could reawaken him. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there to protect you.”

More words rose up in Shiro’s throat in the form of a lump, difficult to speak around and impossible to swallow. He should’ve been there, and he shouldn’t have been here. Should’ve been at Adam’s side from the beginning, but really should’ve been sitting back in the palace with Adam’s parents. He could’ve been there for him if he had resigned himself to being at Adam’s side strictly for work reasons.

Instead, he’d allowed himself to be selfish. Just once.

_Do something._

It wasn’t in his nature to sit on the sidelines and let others handle things; it wasn’t in his nature to be the one protected.

But _Adam_ …

Shiro cradled him and staggered to his feet, while Adam’s head lolled and fell on his shoulder, reminding Shiro that the best thing he could do for his husband _was_ to stay on the sidelines, away from the melee and _away from Haggar_.

Haggar, who had disappeared from her dais.

_No, no…_

Where had she _gone?_ Shiro saw no sign of her in the crowds, though dense as they were, maybe—?

Something flickered in his periphery, and Shiro all but leapt back as Matt blinked back into existence, tugging along with him a disheveled knight and Lance, who cradled an unconscious Keith against his chest.

Lance flicked his eyes to Adam, raised them to Shiro’s face, and mercifully said nothing.

“Curtis can bring you back to the palace,” Matt wheezed, winded from running around invisible, dragging three others with him. “Or at the _very least_ , get you out of here. We can handle the rest of this, and if we don’t make it back—”

“You’re making it back,” Shiro said, even as the knight in question stepped forward and gripped his arm, and then Lance’s. “That’s an order, Holt, do you understand me?”

What should have happened in the ensuing second was Matt affirming he’d heard Shiro and would heed his words, and then the knight—Curtis, jaw set in determination—would transport Shiro, Adam, Lance, Keith, and himself back to the palace so Adam and Keith could get the help they needed.

Instead, Matt raised his head, mouth halfway to an answer, when a clawed hand surrounded by swirling pink magic exploded from his chest, and Shiro could do nothing about it. Shrill laughter met his ears and abruptly vanished, as did the clang of swords and the shouting of the crowds. His ears popped, his feet left the ground, and hardly a moment later, he collapsed in the dirt in the middle of the woods, bearing the brunt of Adam’s weight.

* * *

The first time Adam had seen the Druids’ poison at work, his then-fiancé with one foot into the Underworld because of it, he’d nearly had a heart attack. Takashi had seemed so pained then, even with all of the infirmary’s Healers and Blood-benders at his side. His hand in Adam’s had been cold with oncoming death and then burning with the effort of staying alive: an unnatural fluctuation that had rattled Adam to his core.

Now, though, Adam realized it wasn’t the poison that was painful—it was the fighting against it.

He had slipped into an odd sort of peace when his lights went out. The arena fell away and took with it its screaming, its frantic voices. The moment Takashi took him into his arms, Adam could let himself go. Takashi was there, and so all was right with the world, or so Adam’s muddled brain told him.

Bliss. Quiet darkness.

No more burning in his lungs, no ache in his limbs, no strain in his eyes as he tried to see past a shattered lens. No more chaos. Just peace.

It felt like sleep.

And somewhere in there was the dreaming. Visions of his life surrounded him; he stood in complete black as bubbles with snapshots of his memories floated around him. His childhood lessons in diplomacy. Long hours roaming the library. The discovery of his Reader powers, and his subsequent use of them on every unsuspecting soul that mistakenly wandered into his path. Meeting Takashi for the first time, becoming friends, watching him ascend the ranks. The late nights, the moments stolen for themselves. Missions, some benign and others dangerous. The other knights—Matt and Keith and Lance. Other royals from other kingdoms, like Princess Allura, Queen Ryner. The friendly faces of the palace staff, like Hunk, like Matt’s sister Pidge.

_This is what Takashi saw._

It occurred to him only dimly as the bubble rose before him: Takashi in that crowded infirmary, the entire staff working overtime to keep him alive. His hand in Adam’s, so pale and so cold.

Takashi in his same infirmary bed hours later, asleep. Adam saw his own hands brushing back Takashi’s forelock, caressing his face, holding a hand to his chest just to feel the beat of his heart and know that he was alive. That he would be okay.

_This is what Takashi saw when he was dying._

Awareness—it clawed for Adam as another bubble rose around him. There he and Takashi were: Takashi was sitting up, awake and alert and recounting everything. How he felt as he’d been led to the Underworld, seeing snapshots of his life, his most cherished memories—distractions from the walk to the Underworld itself. And then he saw it—just ahead, with high gates of alabaster. For Takashi, a road had materialized out of beautiful cobblestone, winding its way toward the high arches of the gates, a golden light blotting out everything that lay behind them.

The Circle of Heroes.

And then he had been pulled sharply back, a painful yank he’d felt at his core. The darkness fell away and the world returned in blurry snatches of color and sensation. He had felt Adam’s hand in his own, felt the hands of his healers on his body, trying stubbornly— _successfully_ —to keep him alive.

The ground changed beneath Adam’s feet.

On glancing down, he found ornate cobblestone under his shoes, glistening as if it had been newly polished. Raising his head, trailing his eyes along the path, he found, not too distant from him, gates of shining white alabaster. Beyond them, the gold of a sunset.

_Oh. I’m dying._

Dying. Nearly dead.

And yet something impelled him forward. His feet kept moving, and any thought of stopping passed only fleetingly through Adam’s mind before it slipped away from him like sand through his fingers.

_There is endless happiness ahead_ , the thought came to him unbidden. _You just have to walk through the gates._

Another step. Two. Four. Seven.

Pain lanced through his gut.

It jerked him to a halt, sent him to his knees. He reached one hand out and braced himself against the cobblestone, the other hand flying to his stomach like he could reach inside of himself and tear the pain away. At his touch, though, it only intensified. He grunted, ground his teeth, raised his head and found the gates had vanished, the bubbles had vanished, the path—

“If you die, Shiro’s gonna kill me, now _wake. Up._ ”

Adam couldn’t breathe.

He bolted up—or tried to, at least. Several sets of hands pushed him back down as he gasped for air, and dozens of faces swam before him. Four of them were Lance’s, but none of them were his husband’s.

“ _Where’s Takashi?_ ”

He didn’t recognize the sound of his own voice, choked and desperate, like gravel as his words tore from his throat.

“He’s—he’s coming.”

Hesitation.

Even with the world undulating—darkness crowding the edges of his vision, starbursts of color blotting out almost everything else—Adam caught Lance’s expression in that second. Beneath his concentration, beneath his attempts to focus on healing him—fear.

Against his better judgment, Adam closed his eyes and reached out with his power.

The blue-green of Healers’ threads and the dark red of the Blood-benders flickered in his line of vision, and he reached for Lance’s. It took effort—several times, the threads blinked out of existence. Again and again, Adam wheezed, opened his eyes, anchored himself to the world before the Healers could shove him back down. But amidst the shouting, amidst being told not to strain himself—

_Himself, passed out in Takashi’s arms. A flash of Keith, unconscious with an arrow through his chest, his skin still bone-white and veins blackened. A knight whose name escaped Adam, swaying on his feet, sickly-looking, the snapped shaft of an arrow protruding from the back of his shoulder._

_Keith, on the ground with another handful of knights. Takashi, rolling his shoulders. The soldier, standing next to Lance, who was now carrying Adam._

_“I’m not leaving my knights to die. If I don’t come back, tell Adam I’m_ sorry _, and that he was the last thing I thought about.”_

_A blink. Another drop in the woods just outside the palace, and dozens of on-duty soldiers swarming them. The Teleporter who’d gotten them there, collapsing. A carriage with two on-hand Healers. A frantic ride back to the palace and a stretcher ride back to the infirmary as Lance barked orders._

_No Keith._

“No— _no—!_ ”

“Someone get me a sedative!” Lance met Adam’s eyes with equal measures of betrayal and determination and dropped his voice. “This is for your own good, Your Majesty.”

Adam didn’t have any time to protest. Caught between not knowing what to say and the sheer panic squeezing his lungs, rendering breathing near-impossible, all he could do was screw his eyes shut. There was a pinch in his neck, and the world fell away for a second time.

* * *

Neither side had formally declared war.

No one ever did. Surrounding nations entered talks about _maybe_ declaring war just weeks, _if that_ , before the Galra Empire inevitably swallowed them whole. The Galra hadn’t any need for formal treaties and announcements when breaking down a city’s walls or killing their leader did the job just fine.

Garrina knew what was coming and had been preparing, but not well enough.

Shiro tore through a forest full of corpses. Many enemies, many allies. Dozens of times he fell to his knees in the dirt to examine the face of a soldier he’d seen laughing over drinks or around a campfire only a few weeks back. Dozens of times he closed eyes that were staring sightlessly at the open blue sky.

The further he went, the more bodies he found.

Hope showed itself only in small glimmers. Some soldiers were still alive and moving, regrouping with others before they marched on toward the palace at the heart of Daibazaal. A small number of what seemed to be Healers and Blood-benders flitted through the masses, saving those they could and get them back up to what they considered working order—enough to hold a weapon, and enough to not go back down in one hit.

Every time they saw Shiro, they stopped in their tracks.

Some approached. Some tried to dissuade him from continuing on. Others asked question after question, rapidfire—what was he doing here? Why was he hurt? Where was His Majesty King Adam? Captain Kogane? Captain Holt? What _happened?_

He consented to minimal healing and only offered brief explanations—he was short on time, and he had to get going.

He asked no one to follow, but found himself amassing a small squad, with a Teleporter among them.

One blink. Two.

Twice the world tilted, and twice it righted itself, and twice Shiro stayed on his feet, however nauseated he became. Then they were back inside the walls of Daibazaal’s crown jewel, only to be met with more carnage.

Dead guards were still posted at open doors. Soldiers who appeared as though they merely could have been sleeping slumped over on the floors.

_“Stay close.”_

Shiro gave his one order telepathically as he began leading his soldiers through the halls, slinking from one corridor to the next. Somewhere along the way, steel was pressed into Shiro’s palm from the soldier who stood closest to him. It was a smaller sword than what he’d become accustomed to over these last few years, but it was a sword nonetheless. He’d make it work.

Every minute that passed on his way back to the arena agonized Shiro, and he couldn’t clear his mind of Matt’s expression in the second before he had been whisked away—eyes wide, mouth agape, ignorant of everything else except agony. Shiro imagined his own face had mirrored it almost perfectly.

_Patience. Focus._ If he rushed, he’d just lead his soldiers straight into slaughter.

So the closer they drew to the arena, the slower the approach became, until finally Shiro raised his hand and crept ahead of the rest. He peered down the hallway they were meant to turn down, unsure of what to expect—for the heavy doors to be bolted shut, with the swell of a screaming crowd muffled behind them? For bodies to line the way?

Whatever it was, he hadn’t imagined the doors to be thrown wide open, Garrinian forces pressing back against the Galra with what appeared to be—new allies?

They wore dark uniforms, sure, but they weren’t the Galra colors.

Moreover, _his soldiers were pressing back against the Galra._ Eyes that had blazed pink before were now bright and clear. Either Lance’s arrows had finally worked, or something else was at play. Something to do with the sudden help.

After a moment of worrying at his lower lip with his teeth, he glanced back at the soldiers waiting in the hall behind him and nodded.

_“Guards up. We’re not going home until we get every last one of ours out of there.”_

Straightening his back, Shiro peeled away from the wall and charged.

* * *

Adam woke up late that evening to shouting, the infirmary in a flurry of motion.

“We’re gonna need another tray of doses that we _don’t have_ —”

“Another troop’s making its way down the hill!”

“Do we even have the _bedspace?_ ”

“We’ll make it!”

Healers and Blood-benders in various states of disarray flitted between beds with once pristine sheets stained red and brown. Most were occupied with soldiers, some of whom had legs wrapped in bandages, others who had arms in splints. Many awaited treatment, and very few rested. Those that did rest seemed sound asleep, curled up in blankets with fresh pink scars—some from stab wounds, others from burns, and still others from various sorts of magic or weapons.

He saw neither Takashi nor Keith nor Matt among them.

Then again, that could have been the lack of glasses.

He reached for the small bedside table and found his same frames from before, only someone had taken the time to clean them and get them fitted with fresh lenses. It was the only thing that had changed—he still wore the same tattered dress shirt he had worn in the dungeons, absent of a coat and his dagger and his crown.

_That’s not important right now._

Several times more, he swept his eyes around the room and saw only the vaguely familiar faces of knights and soldiers. None stood out to him, save maybe for the Teleporter that had brought him here in the first place, the one he had seen in Lance’s—

_Lance._

Adam had only just started looking for him when a voice called out, “The king is awake!”

Chattering exploded throughout the room—some people were cheering, others sighing in relief, and that was when Adam found Lance, slipping out of the crowd and hurrying to his bedside.

“They’re not back yet,” Lance said before Adam could even ask. He kept his voice low as he knelt down next to him, took his wrist, and closed his eyes. “We’ve had troops pouring in all afternoon, and we’ve only gotten pieces of the whole story from them. Some reported seeing Shiro in the woods, others…others say they saw a stranger with Keith…” Lance sucked in a breath through his teeth, shoulders bunching, and then he let the breath go. “No word from the central conflict at Daibazaal. All we know is that your parents have taken over again for the time being, and they’re about to sign a formal declaration of war with the Empire. They’ve already been in contact with several of our allies, including Altea and Olkarion.”

Lance opened his eyes and released Adam’s wrist, but his shoulders did not relax.

“The Alteans sent Princess Allura as quickly as they could—it’s the only reason we can handle the capacity we’re at. They’re all gifted Healers, and Princess Allura has been studying the healing practices of the Mages of Oriande herself. A delegation from Olkarion is on its way too. Everything else…that’s still up in the air. Including the status of the rest of the Knights and Shiro.”

_Oh, Takashi…_

“What happened in the woods?” Adam asked, unable to bring his voice above a whisper.

Lance’s gaze went distant.

“I’m sorry for trying to look into your mind like that,” Adam tacked on. “I…”

“You wanted to know,” Lance finished for him, and then shook his head. “It doesn’t matter, at this point. Curtis—he’s the one who got us here. He’d been one of the ones under Haggar’s control. He was weakened from her magic and the fight, and there…there were hard choices to be made. He couldn’t get all of us back here—not without either his powers or his body giving out on him, and I was already strained as it was…” Lance took another breath. “Shiro made the final call. You needed to get back here, we knew that much. I needed to be back here. Curtis could only manage himself and the two of us. There’d been a small group of soldiers nearby, so Shiro reached out to them. They took watch of Keith, and Shiro’s goal was to get back to Daibazaal to help our troops.”

Adam stared at Lance.

Lance stared at nothing.

Then Adam sank back in his bed, eyes drifting to the ceiling before he closed them.

_This is my fault._ It rested on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t say it.

On the one hand, it was. Adam was the king, the one who’d been born into the royal family, the one who’d been poised to take the throne all along. He had known, he had _known_ how dangerous the Galra were. He should’ve taken them more seriously, shouldn’t have stridden into enemy territory like it was nothing, should’ve fought back harder. His knights were meant to protect him, meant to take his falls for him, and they’d signed up for that, but _dammit,_ Adam didn’t have to seal their fate the way he did.

On the other hand, it was no fault but the Galra’s that he had been kidnapped in the first place, that his soldiers had been attacked and poisoned and brainwashed. The nastiness of others was no one’s responsibility but their own.

_I am going to take the fall for this._

It was his duty as a leader to protect his country, to sacrifice himself before anybody else, and he had failed.

That didn’t mean he couldn’t try and rectify his mistakes.

With a grunt, Adam sat up, and Lance flinched back, eyes narrowing when he saw Adam swing his legs over the side of the bed.

“Your Majesty—” he started, rising to full height and holding a hand out, only for Adam to grab his arm and pull himself the rest of the way up.

“You need beds, and I don’t need this one,” Adam cut him off. “And you know you don’t need the formality with me.”

Lance pursed his lips. For a moment it appeared as though he was formulating some sort of counterargument, but ultimately gave up.

“Fine,” he said instead. “We’ve managed to clear your system, so you should be fine, but I’m still going to hold you _here_ until someone can escort you—”

“Sir McClain!”

Lance spun around, and Adam’s head whipped in the direction of the door as one of the palace messengers came barreling into the room.

“Oh, good,” they breathed out, trying hard not to double over and wheeze, “His Majesty is awake. We’ve got—we’ve got uninvited guests at the gates, but they’re—they’re with Captain Kogane and His Majesty…His Other Majesty.”

Lance traded looks with Adam. Adam gripped his arm.

“Congratulations, Sir McClain, you’re my escort now.” He raised his head and nodded to the messenger. “Please, lead the way.”

The messenger obeyed, walking as fast as they could without full-on running, while Adam and Lance trailed not too far behind. True to Lance’s words, Adam felt fine, like he could’ve sprinted the whole way there, but decided to lean on Lance anyway—at least until they reached the door and the cluster of on-duty guards waiting for them. Only then did he let Lance go and straighten out, and with a nod allowed his guards to draw the doors open. Lance fell into line behind him, and guards stepped in at the front and end of their procession to surround Adam.

The open doors gave way to cool night air and a torch-lit, tree-lined path down the sprawling lawn. It split around a massive marble fountain—topped with statues of the sun, moon, and dozens of smaller stars spilling water down into the main basin—and converged again on the other side, leading up a hill to the iron-and-stone gates enclosing the palace property. Even in the dark, even at this distance, even with the gates and the fountain and the guards between them, Adam could just make out Takashi’s form at the head of what could have passed for a small army.

He and a haggard-looking Keith carried an unconscious Matt Holt between them. On Takashi’s other side stood a stranger in a dark cloak, hood drawn.

“ _Keith_.” 

Adam hardly heard the relieved whisper from Lance as they advanced on—his eyes were too fixed on his husband. Takashi’s shirt was more torn than it had been in Adam’s last moments of consciousness in the arena, and he now sported bandages on his shoulder and bicep, as well as another light wrap around his chest. His white forelock hung limply, dustily in his face, but behind it, his eyes glinted in the torchlight.

Takashi, ever the fighter.

It took nearly all of Adam’s self-restraint not to break free of his entourage of guards and sweep him into a hug.

He followed protocol all the way to the gates, where his guards fell into a tight line before him while others pulled the gates open. Swords _shing_ ed as they were pulled free from their scabbards, and if Adam looked up toward the guard towers flanking the gates, he would have seen archers with arrows pointed at the mass of knights and soldiers who had made their way back to the palace—some Garrinian, but others foreign.

For a moment, all was still.

Adam met Takashi’s eyes from between the heads of his guards, heart swelling as Takashi offered him a tired smile.

“At ease,” Adam called to the guards, thinly returning his husband’s look. “I assure you, were my husband any kind of threat, we’d already be in combat.”

A beat, and the ranks broke down the middle. Adam strode through more briskly than necessary, slowing only when he reached Takashi.

“My love,” Adam murmured, reaching a hand out and cupping his husband’s cheek. Takashi leaned into it, unable to do anything more while he bore half of Matt’s weight.

Here, they both remained composed, pictures of sophistication and grace before several dozen onlookers, but Adam saw the relief that flooded Takashi’s expression and the exhaustion that fought to sink his shoulders.

“Sweetheart,” Takashi said back to him, voice quiet and wobbling. He swallowed. “Sorry I’m so late.”

So much more sat beneath the surface—words, lodged as a lump in his throat. They needed to talk, needed just a moment alone. Adam the person, Adam the lover would have wasted no time giving that to him; but Adam the king, Adam the leader, had other duties to attend to, issues to sort out.

“You’re home,” Adam told him. “That’s what matters.”

_We’re going to talk as soon as we’re able,_ Adam didn’t say as he ran his thumb over Takashi’s cheekbone, and then finally drew back to assess the rest of those around them, gazing out over the small crowd that had amassed. Knights of the Amber Star, other Garrinian soldiers, and then the people he didn’t recognize. They wore dark armor that didn’t quite resemble that of the Galra Empire—a few shades of gray off the mark, splashes of red and purple here and there where the Empire wore none. Something had happened to bring them here—something to do with the person in the cloak, likely, since they stood at the front.

_Priorities first._

“Those injured or those assisting the injured, you’re to proceed immediately with Sir McClain to the infirmary,” Adam called out, voice echoing in the night. “You’ll be situated with beds, and our Healers and Blood-benders will attend to you as quickly as they can. You’ll be provided hot meals thereafter. For our guests among us, we’ll be arranging immediately for overnight accommodations.”

With a glance back, he motioned Lance forward, and directed him, “Assist Captain Kogane in bringing Captain Holt down. I’m afraid His Majesty has other business to attend to.” He nodded then to Shiro, who carefully shrugged Matt’s arm down from around his shoulders and draped it over Lance’s.

“Yes, Your Majesties,” Lance replied with a small bow, and then tipped his head back. “All of those on their way to the infirmary, follow us!”

With that, they were off.

Adam stepped aside as much of the crowd crept forward, funneling into something of a line back down the hill to the palace. With so many people distracted, an arm wrapped tightly around Adam’s waist as Takashi drew him in, wrapped his other arm around his back, and buried his face in Adam’s neck.

“Oh, Takashi,” Adam whispered, returning his hug. “It’s alright, love. It’s alright.”

If Adam were able to get his way, he already would’ve been ushering Takashi back into the palace and off to their bedroom for a warm bath, dinner, and then a night of rest. Here, though, he was resigned to simply holding him as close as he could for as long as he could; which was to say, not very long. As soon as the last of the infirmary crowd departed, he pulled back from Takashi, save for the way he laced their fingers together, and turned toward those who remained.

Specifically, the stranger in the cloak. The same stranger who kept his guards on edge and his archers with arrows nocked.

“Adam,” Takashi started, voice rough around the edges, “this is the person who assisted us in combat. Without him and his forces…nobody would have made it back tonight.”

He gestured with his free hand while the stranger lowered his hood to his shoulders, giving way to long white hair, startlingly purple eyes, and features unmistakably Daibazaalan in nature—all traits Adam recognized, though it took him a moment.

“Your Majesty,” the not-stranger addressed with a small bow, even as Adam’s heart set to racing. He turned to Takashi. “I apologize for any… _untruths_ I may have given you during that fight. I simply could not have people in that arena recognizing me.” Back to Adam, who tightened his grip on Takashi’s hand. “Your forces and your husband have been addressing me as Sincline, as have many of my allies. However, _you_ may know me better by a different name.”

“I do,” Adam said quietly.

Prince Lotor, the exiled son of King Zarkon and the late Queen Honerva.

* * *

Lance didn’t get a moment alone— _alone_ being a relatively loose term—with Keith until everyone they brought into the infirmary was situated in a bed and being attended to, with the strangers among them being logged on a tablet going around the room.

Matt took some priority as Keith’s second and was placed under the care of two senior Healers. Keith took a priority of his own—Lance’s priority. The only perk of being Keith’s boyfriend under these circumstances was that he was always the one who attended to Keith.

Magic responded to magic it knew and trusted, and save for Shiro and maybe Adam, Keith trusted Lance above anyone else.

Even after Lance had shot him in the chest—the _heart_ —with an arrow.

They hadn’t spoken a word about it, even while they carried Matt between themselves. Had anyone who didn’t know any better looked at them on the way here, they would have seen two soldiers and assumed only the camaraderie of brothers in arms. Keith stared straight ahead, stone-faced as he limped, while Lance bore more than half of Matt’s weight so that Keith wouldn’t go crashing down in the middle of a hallway.

Now, though…

“C’mon, let’s get you in a bed.”

Keith had slumped over the minute they handed over Matt to someone else, right into Lance’s arms— _for the second time,_ a little voice in the back of Lance’s head reminded him tauntingly. Rather than make him stand on his own, Lance had swept an arm underneath Keith’s legs and scooped him into a bridal carry, over to the last bed in one of the rows. Since it was up against the far wall, it gave them a few empty beds as a buffer from the rest of the infirmary.

“Here we go…”

Lance laid him down gently and brushed his bangs back, only for Keith to reach up with a weak arm and run a thumb along the cut on Lance’s forehead with a frown.

“You didn’t get this healed.”

“It’s not that important right now.” Lance grasped Keith’s wrist and lowered his arm. “What’s important is seeing what’s been done here, and what still needs healing.” Swallowing hard, Lance’s eyes traveled down to Keith’s shirt. Somebody had sliced it open in the same spot the arrow had hit its mark, and when Lance peeled the flaps of his shirt back, he found criss-crossing scars where there should have been a puncture wound.

Lightly, hesitantly, he ran fingers over the raised pink skin.

“Who healed this?” he asked, voice nothing more than a guilty whisper.

“…That guy that was with us when we got back. Standing next to Shiro,” Keith said after a moment. “He said his name was Sincline.”

“Sincline, huh?” Lance sighed through his nose. “Guess I’m gonna have to thank him next time I see him.”

“Maybe,” Keith said, clasping his hand over Lance’s. “He asked about you, you know. Once I was conscious again.”

Lance turned sharply toward him. “Me?”

“Mmm.” Keith closed his eyes and squeezed Lance’s hand. “Wanted to know if you were a Mage. Something about whatever you’d coated the arrowhead in. It’s the only reason I was able to take a shot to the heart and survive, but he’s never seen handiwork like that outside of the Mages.”

“Wait, wait, he knows—is he a Mage?” Lance asked.

“Sounded like it.”

They both quieted after that, as Keith’s breathing slowed and heartbeat relaxed beneath Lance’s fingertips. Unwilling to disturb the peace any further, Lance shook his head as if it would clear his mind and set to work. He, too, closed his eyes, and the threads of his magic and Keith’s magic lit up before him. In the arena, Keith’s threads had been a mess, a normal dark red tangled with bright pink, almost inextricable. The blue-green of Lance’s healing magic, combined with the white of a Mage’s magic—both of which he’d imbued in the arrow—had barely been able to worm their way in-between.

Now, though, Keith’s threads glowed dimly, not a trace of Druid pink to be found. He was still weakened but on the mend, which meant easy healing. Maybe a minute or two of moderate concentration at most.

So concentrate he did, with Keith’s hand still on his. He pushed aside the memories of the arena surging up—pushed aside the remnants of the panic he’d felt and his guilt in leaving Keith behind to get Adam back to the palace—and reached for his happy place. He reached for the lake just a short horseback ride away from the palace near the edge of the forest, for his days off wandering through the local market, for the nights when he was bone-tired in the best way and crashed into bed with Keith curled into his side, for the night walks in the palace gardens with the moon guiding his way…

Lance pinpointed the moment Keith’s magic began flowing and working with his; concentration had at first felt like swimming against the current, but now felt like getting swept away with the tide, letting it carry him wherever it pleased.

Less than two minutes, and then it was over.

When Lance opened his eyes, he found Keith watching him. He wasn’t smiling, exactly—but he wasn’t frowning, either. A tired look, maybe, but one at peace.

Lance leaned down and kissed his forehead, hand still over his heart.

“I’m sorry about the arrow,” he murmured, drawing back only slightly. He thought about saying more, turned over words and explanations in his mind, let them get to the tip of his tongue as if he could taste them, and ultimately shook his head, choosing to press his forehead against Keith’s instead and blow out a breath through his nose. “I’m so sorry.”

“You did what you had to do,” Keith replied, reaching with his free hand to hold the back of Lance’s neck. He swallowed hard and added, more quietly, “Duty comes first.”

_Duty comes first._

It had been Lance’s exact train of thought in the moment he made his decision. Shiro had managed to reach out to a nearby group of knights still recovering from an earlier battle with his telepathy and had gotten them to take watch of Keith. Shiro himself was going back to Daibazaal, protocol be damned. And Lance had no other choice—Curtis could only teleport with two others. Adam needed to be healed or he would die, and he was Garrina’s king.

It made leaving Keith behind hurt no less.

And then hearing later that he’d been seen by other knights with a stranger?

_He’s as good as dead._ It was nothing more than a fluke that the stranger—Sincline, evidently—had been kind enough to heal him. Had it been anyone else, anyone harboring ill will toward Garrina, an assassin in disguise…

He almost lost Keith. He had gotten lucky.

“Are you ever gonna get that cut looked at?” Keith asked when Lance didn’t respond.

Lance choked on a laugh and pulled back.

“You’re the one who—”

“Lance, get that looked at or so help me…”

When Lance didn’t move, only staring in disbelief with a wide grin, Keith surged up.

The grin vanished.

“What are you—”

“Excuse me!” Keith shouted over him. “Sir McClain is in need of a—”

“Gods above, shut _up_ —”

“I will fight you right here, right now—”

“You’re a fucking _Blood-bender!_ And get back in bed!”

Lance turned to find that a few of the infirmary staff closest to them were watching now, mildly concerned, curiosity piqued. He smiled sheepishly at them, and then dismissed them with a wave before returning his attention to Keith, who sat at the edge of the bed, arms crossed.

“So first it’s _don’t call anyone else over here, you’re a Blood-bender, aren’t you?_ And then immediately after, it’s _Keith, get back in bed_. Which is it, Sharpshooter? Or are you just trying to avoid having anyone take the time to care about you?”

“Bold accusation coming from someone who took an _arrow to the heart_ and then had the _audacity_ to reprimand me for not healing a cut on my forehead that isn’t even bleeding anymore,” Lance said, sitting down next to Keith. “And we’ve already had this conversation.”

“Must be a reason for that—”

“ _Keith_.”

“Alright, alright. Let me see you.”

Lance faced him fully; Keith cupped Lance’s jaw while he brought his other hand to Lance’s forehead. He traced his fingertips along the ridge of dried blood covering up the cut itself. Then he closed his eyes, brows pinching slightly.

“It’s not too deep, but it’s deeper than I’d like,” he said quietly. “I don’t know if this will sting any, but…”

Keith didn’t finish his sentence as he lapsed into deep concentration. All the while, Lance watched him, and felt the tickle of their magic meeting and mingling. Slowly, the skin of Lance’s forehead began healing, red scar rising up underneath the layer of dried blood. He’d have to get washed up later, as soon as he had a minute to himself, but for now, this would do.

“There.”

Keith pulled back the hand on Lance’s forehead, but the one on his jaw remained as Keith opened his eyes to study his work. Then his gaze drifted down. Lance followed his line of sight, licking his lips once, and leaned in—

“Keith, Lance—”

Lance flinched back while Keith grunted, hand falling from Lance’s face as he glanced back. The two of them found Shiro standing there, a shortsword strapped to his belt and a longsword in hand.

A longsword with an amber-encrusted hilt.

Any indignation on Keith’s part went forgotten as he stared at the sword, and then at Shiro, who stared right back as though he’d forgotten why he walked into the infirmary in the first place.

“Uh, Your Majesty?” Lance asked. “Did you need us?”

Shiro blinked.

Keith squinted.

“Is everything alright, Shiro?” he asked.

“Is Adam alright?” Lance added. “Did the poison—is he having a relapse with it—?”

“If that was the case, I would be much more panicked,” Shiro said, seeming to come back to himself. “He’s fine, Lance. You, the other Healers—whatever you did worked just fine, just like it did for me. No, I’m here because I need you two. Your presence is requested in the situation room.”

“Both of us?” Lance asked, inching back. “I—”

“You’re not in trouble, and you’re off-duty in here by my orders,” Shiro interrupted. “We need you because you’re knowledgeable about the recent situations in the palace, and because you’re the head of the Healers’ Division. It’s imperative you’re there. Keith, as the Captain of the Guard, your presence is also of the utmost importance. I _promise_ , neither of you are in trouble.”

Keith reached back for Lance’s hand.

Lance took it and squeezed it.

“I can explain on the way,” Shiro said at their hesitation. “It’s you two, me, Adam, and then…two of our guests.”

It took a minute; once it registered with Keith, he nodded and glanced back at Lance, who shrugged and rose from the bed. Keith followed suit.

“I also wanted to give you this back,” Shiro said, offering the longsword to Keith. “This belongs to you now.”

He waited as Keith studied it, and then reluctantly took it into his free hand, eyes darkening as they ran over the blade.

“Did a pretty lousy job keeping it,” he muttered, only for Lance to elbow him hard in the side, and Shiro to frown.

“The Druids got the best of all of us, Keith,” he said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Not to mention, it was your first true mission as Captain, and we…picked a very bad place to send such a small unit of knights to. It’s not your fault. And for what it’s worth, Adam said you put up quite the fight against whatever the witch did to you.” Shiro dropped his voice, “A lot of our knights wouldn’t have lasted as long as Adam said you did. I certainly wouldn’t have. This is nothing to beat yourself up over.”

“Aren’t we supposed to be somewhere?” Keith asked, shoulders bunching up as he avoided Shiro’s gaze.

Shiro sighed. “Yeah, we are. Come on.” He started for the door, and Keith and Lance fell into step behind him.

* * *

The situation room had no windows.

Seated in the heart of the palace, in a hallway accessed by a door so plain and unassuming most people skipped right over it, it housed some of Garrina’s best-kept secrets, battle strategies, and international correspondence. Shiro had lost many nights to that room, standing behind the chair where Adam would sit, surrounded by dignitaries from around the country and representatives on behalf of their allies.

Tonight, he had lost another.

Sunrise bathed the cherrywood walls of the palace gold when he opened the door to let Princess Allura, Prince Lotor, Keith, and Lance out of the room, and then the sun rays vanished again as he pulled it shut once more, leaving him alone with Adam.

Adam practically slumped over at the long table in the center of the room, wooden figurines clattering as they fell over on an expansive map of the continent. His crown slipped down his head, on the verge of joining the figurines on the table when Shiro crossed the room and took it off for him, setting it down away from the map.

“You need rest, sweetheart,” he murmured, coming yet again to stand behind him. He set his hands upon Adam’s shoulders and began massaging them. “It’s been a rough few days, and it looks like…it’s not going to improve any time soon. Take the day.”

“I had no idea,” Adam muttered into his arms, “that Lance was on friendly terms with Princess Allura. And that she was the one who suggested the arrows.”

“Well, they certainly came in handy,” Shiro replied, and tipped his head back. “Healing arrows. That’s a new one.”

“A big _fuck you_ to the Druids’ Poisoner arrows,” Adam added with an amused lilt in his voice.

Shiro snorted softly, glancing down again to get a glimpse of the back of his husband’s head. “Can’t imagine they’ll be pleased when they discover it. …And hopefully, that’s not until the war is long over, and it’s written down in the history books as one of our greatest accomplishments.”

The thin veneer of levity broke.

Adam didn’t respond, and Shiro kept rubbing his shoulders.

It was wishful thinking to believe the Druids would never find out about what they were now calling the Oriande Panacea, also known as White Lion Serum. It had been a work in progress by the Mages, offered to Garrina as a potential solution to their problems, a possible cure against whatever concoction made up the Druids’ most lethal poison.

It had saved Keith, who’d taken an arrow to the heart.

It had saved Matt, who’d taken a magical hand through the back and out through his chest, and by all means shouldn’t have survived.

The serum was nothing short of a miracle, given that it had never finished its testing by the Healers’ Division. Preliminary tests yielded incredible results, but it needed long-term study. The Healers had _planned_ on long-term study, on keeping this under wraps until they could guarantee it would work, but time hadn’t been on their side. Not with Adam and Keith held hostage.

Lance had only taken a quiver full of arrows coated in it as a last-ditch effort, and at least one of them had to have been left behind in Daibazaal.

Rumor had it that Haggar had been a Mage, once upon a time. Sometime in her studies, she had been corrupted, broke off from the Mages, and made her exit in a murderous rampage, going on to form the Druids. Nobody knew how long ago that was—nobody knew how old Haggar was. Just that she had always been around, and always adapted.

The Druids would discover the arrows—the _serum_ —sooner rather than later.

“We’re really going to war,” Adam sighed. “The first major event of our reign, and we’re not even the ones signing off on the declaration.”

In official record books, the last and next few months would all be marked off as a transition period—never before heard of in Garrina’s history—between one reign to the next. Some things were Adam and Shiro’s doing; others belonged to Adam’s parents. A period of a sort of joint rulership, before Adam and Shiro formally took over, even if the coronation had already happened shortly after the wedding.

_It’s a tumultuous time, not very conducive to a smooth transition._ That had been the former queen’s rationale.

It still didn’t ease any of the guilt bogging Adam down.

“It’s not your fault,” Shiro pointed out. “War with the Galra has been a long time coming. We couldn’t just keep the kingdom at a standstill while we waited for them to come to us. And besides—when we win, you’ll look all the better for it. _King Adam handled one of the most chaotic transitions into rulership with the utmost tact, grace, and wit_ —”

Adam turned to look at him, red-eyed with a wry smile.

“ _—and led his people to a victory unlike any other—_ ”

“Takashi.”

“Dear, I’m in the middle of making a speech proclaiming your greatness—”

“You’re forgetting a very important part.”

Shiro stepped back as Adam rose from his seat and wrapped his arms around Shiro’s neck.

“And what’s that?” Shiro asked, slipping his arms around Adam’s waist and pulling him closer.

“You,” Adam hummed.

Shiro flushed scarlet as Adam leaned in and kissed the tip of his nose, paused a moment, and then leaned in again and captured his lips.

“Alright,” Shiro murmured between kisses, “so _we’re_ —in this together—and _we_ lead our people—to a victory unlike—any other—and you learn to stop—beating yourself up over—things beyond your control—”

“As does my husband,” Adam cut in, “who’s too—self-sacrificial for his—own good—”

Shiro took in another breath, meaning to reply, when a knock at the door startled both him and Adam. Shiro’s one arm wound tighter around Adam’s waist, while he reached with his other for the shortsword on his belt. The door creaked until it had opened enough for Keith to poke his head in.

“Shiro? Ad—? Oh. I see. I’m interrupting something.” Instead of closing the door, he smirked. “Shiro, don’t look at me like that. This is payback.”

“Did you need us?” Adam asked, letting one arm go of his husband’s neck to push his sword down.

“Your parents are looking for you two,” Keith answered. “It’s also nearing breakfast time, and they think the two of you making an official appearance in the infirmary and then the dining room is good for morale, or something like that.”

Shiro sighed. “Give us a minute.”

“I’ll be outside the door the _whole time_ —”

“Keith!”

Keith’s quiet laughter cut off as he pulled the door shut and left Adam and Shiro alone again.

“Well, looks like the Druids couldn’t keep him down for long,” Adam remarked softly.

“You’re right,” Shiro said, blowing out a breath through his nose. “I’m glad for that, at least.” Then he cleared his throat, voice rising just the slightest, “And they’re not going to keep _us_ down, either. _We’re_ going to get through this. Together.”

“Together,” Adam repeated as though tasting the word, and then nodded. “Together.” He let go of Shiro’s neck and reached for his hand. “Sounds good to me.”

Shiro laced their fingers together.

“Me too. Now, after breakfast, you’re going to get some rest, or so help me, I will _make you_ —”

“Oh, you’ll make me?”

Shiro shook his head, smiling all the while. “You’re really going to challenge the former Captain of the Guard?”

Adam smiled right back. “Of course, love. I want to see you put those leadership skills to use.”

They pulled open the door, only to find Keith waiting on the other side, arms crossed.

“Payback,” Shiro sing-songed to him, pulling Adam down the hall.

Keith rolled his eyes, suppressing his own smile, and followed them. “This isn’t over, Shiro!”

**Author's Note:**

> can u tell the first half especially was influenced by all the classical/gladiator movies i had to watch for my film class this past semester 
> 
> ANYWAY i hope u all enjoyed that!!!! anna, thank u again for the request!!! if u guys would like a request of ur own, find out how u can get one [right here!!](https://twitter.com/astralscrivener/status/1238922041216176131)
> 
> in the meantime, consider subscribing so u don't miss out on any new fics, and also check out the links below!!! see y'all whenever the next one is!! <3333
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> (but also seriously follow me on twitter i scream all the time on there lmao)
> 
> [my fix-it fic (s4-8 rewrite)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15900732/chapters/37059441) || [my other fics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/astralscrivener/works) || [nicole's fics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/queeneevee/works) || [my twitter](https://twitter.com/astralscrivener) || [nicole's twitter](https://twitter.com/queen__eevee)


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